Hoyas' helping hand

Slick Jeff Green plays the team game while leading Georgetown to the Final Four

March 30, 2007|By Brian Hamilton, Tribune staff reporter.

A week earlier, Jeff Green and his extraterrestrial athletic ability had altered an NCAA tournament game against Boston College in one hair-raising instant.

An errant shot by struggling Georgetown caromed off the rim. Players leaped for the rebound. In from the wing swooped Green, literally head and shoulders above everyone else, his momentum carrying him across the lane and away from the basket. The junior forward nonetheless collected the ball in his right palm, then fiercely jammed it through the cylinder.

Seven days later, Green described his favorite type of play: Georgetown forward Patrick Ewing Jr. made a perfect back-door cut against Vanderbilt the day before. From the top of the key, Green lasered a bounce pass into his teammate's hands.

And then Ewing lost his footing, fell and was whistled for a turnover.

"He could have had a dunk, but he slipped," Green said. "I was still grateful that he went up and caught it.

"It could've been a highlight. It wasn't, but that's the type of play I like. Just having my teammates beat the other guy and me being able to say I threw them that pass to get them that highlight."

Georgetown is in the Final Four in Atlanta this weekend largely because of the altruism and game-saving exploits of Green, the Hoyas' one-man Salvation Army, if you will. The Big East player of the year is so impossibly regular that he seems a borderline hallucination.

Green has no tattoos. Before his sophomore year he lopped off long braids that earned him the nickname "Predator" because, he said, it was time to "grow up." He would as soon deliver a well-timed bounce pass as a game-winning shot. Which Green has done too: His notorious did-he-travel-or-not bank shot with 2.5 seconds left beat Vanderbilt in the regional semifinals.

Of course, Green said he would have passed to a cutting Ewing if he had been open on that sequence or to another teammate if the Commodores had triple-teamed him. Of course.

"He's so different than the typical star of today's college game," said ex-Fenwick player Kenny Izzo, a Hoyas reserve and Green's main practice sparring partner. "He's just stoic, does what he has to do. He's not into all this media hype. He's not into the hype of the tournament. He just wants to go out and win for his teammates.

"It feels great to be on the court with someone who has that much talent and cares about the game that much at the same time."

The selfless mentality is a bonus, because the sheer talent is enough to make Green a surefire NBA lottery pick should he skip his final year of eligibility.

At 6 feet 9 inches, Green is capable at any spot, averaging 6.2 rebounds, 3.2 assists and 1.2 blocks per game. His scoring average is a relatively pedestrian 14.4 points, but some of that is the result of the Hoyas' deliberate offense, some of it Green's egalitarian mind-set, some of it playing limited minutes in blowouts.

"We talk a lot in our program about making winning plays, and Jeff Green makes a lot of winning plays," Vanderbilt coach Kevin Stallings said. "He can shoot threes. He's great on the block. He has a midrange game that most guys who are 6-9 don't have, and there's not much that he can't do."

This has become clear to Georgetown's players, who might as well wear chin guards in practice, given how jaw-dropping Green's exploits can be.

Example: He regularly dunks with his right hand after leaping off his right foot. As simple as it sounds, that is completely antithetical to basketball fundamentals and, frankly, natural body movement.

"I've never seen anybody do that," Hoyas guard Jessie Sapp said. "It's weird, but he does it all the time. It's crazy. It's amazing."

Predictably, Green does not view himself as the Hoyas' hub, reserving that designation for 7-2 center Roy Hibbert. He admires most one of the all-time great wingmen, Scottie Pippen.

"[Michael] Jordan got what he did, but Pippen was always there to help his team win, to do whatever it takes," Green said. "I look at Roy as being my Michael Jordan, and I'm playing the Scottie Pippen role. I'm doing the things it takes for our team to win."

That cannot be argued. In fact, as he sat at a makeshift dais last week in East Rutherford, N.J., Green allowed some bravado just once, when asked about his unselfishness.

"That's what separates me from most players," Green said. "I'm probably the most unselfish player you'll ever meet. . . . I love dishing out a back-door pass."

So there is Jeff Green, floating by the adulation-hungry headliners, making regular the new weird.